Police Chasing Scorching Auto (1905)

User Rating:

5.8/10   

Directors:

Wallace McCutcheon
Edwin S. Porter

Release Date:

1905 (USA)

Genre:

Short | Crime

Plot:

Police officers pursue a speeding automobile that almost hit a small child.

Plot Keywords:

Grant's Tomb | Police Chase

Runtime:

3 min

Country:

USA

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Silent

Company:

Edison Manufacturing Company

Trivia:

This was essentially an outtake from Life of an American Policeman (1905). Once that film had been edited to fit a standard 1,000 foot reel, this sequence was left over, so it was sold as a separate short.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Edison: The Invention of the Movies (2005) (V)

An Exciting, Realistic Feature

This is an exciting and realistic depiction of a police chase involving an interesting assortment of participants. It was originally filmed with the idea of including it in the fine Edison feature "Life Of An American Policeman", but it was one of the sequences that had to be omitted due to constraints on the movie's length. But it certainly stands up perfectly well on its own, as a shorter feature of about three minutes long.

The feature starts with an automobile full of apparent joy-riders barely missing a young child in the street, and then the chase is on. Eventually the automobile is pursued by two policemen on motorbikes and one on a horse. The footage of the chase still looks very good, conveying both a sense of speed and a sense of tension. The climax of the chase occurs near Grant's Tomb, adding an interesting backdrop to the finale.

The moving cinematography is nicely done, with very smooth photography that would look good in just about any era. There is one shot near the beginning that you can just spot as a stop-motion shot, but otherwise the technique is flawless for the time. It still works well in conveying the excitement of a chase with motorized vehicles, a subject that was surely much more exotic and even more exciting at the time.